Seeker 1: That is it! Here is the path to truth!
Seeker 2: Really? How do you know?
Seeker 1: Because I have seen it! The other side! I do it this way and again and again I see the other side!*
Seeker 2: So what you see denotes what is?
Seeker 1: Of course! It is right there! As clearly as this wall is solid and this apple falls when I drop it!

A bee flies up against a window, desperate to get back outside. He can see and feel the sun and grass, and he beats his head repeatedly against the pane to make his way through. Seekers 1 and 2 try to guide him out, but their giant hands are horrific and they only push him towards darkness, wood and metal and not the clear pane that must hold the way out! If the foolish insect only knew that it was through the dark hallway that there is an open door to the outside.

the impression that, in the age of expansion (1850’s – 1920’s) and the centuries before (17th), that science was inexorably tied to not only a calculated observation with measurements and made up numbers, but with drawing, philosophy, theosophy, architecture, music, and religion. That those pursuing knowledge looked through the lens of a microscope, into ancient superstition, esoteric and occult traditions, herbalism, wild-crafting, and most importantly their own imaginations.

It was a more obvious creative process, including the scientific one, but not limited in thought (these are my rose colored glasses – of course they were limited by the tools they had grasp of the same as us now); but the rules felt less defined; because of the poor communication, and the isolation, and the madness of the times. Thus the box wasn’t so tight. They might be tripping on moldy bread; drilling holes in their heads for words with angels; or simply tripping on their own creative wandering in their untethered minds.

What is the purpose then of climbing mountains? (a leap in inquisition) or making music? writing ideas and stories down? crafting them into prose and poetry? Making and existing in beautiful spaces? Creating new?

Is it only a serving of inspiration? An expansion of self through hard work, exposure, and being compelled by one’s own fears? Why that then? Changing. Growing. Why those then? And what is this magnetism towards being complacent? lazy? stagnant? why do I want to freeze moments in time hoping they’ll never change?

“the learner must be led always
from familiar objects towards the unfamiliar,
guided along, as it were
a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life”

The ‘hero’ reaches it by sheer power and excellence but cannot obtain it (because of his/her own flawed and purposeless means – aggressive means? maybe? even);

He/She spirals but finds his/her way to self exploration and living ‘pious’ (to his/her defined values).

In so doing he/she happens upon the object again,

this time casually grasping the thing to use for something else entirely – the object is not the purpose at all any longer. He/She might not even acknowledge that he/she has just used that thing. That is not important.

The suffocating blankets
looming
across an incredible stretch;
as far as far; only
yielding
over some unimaginably distant world with a break
–
bathing
gold and gleam
touching down to some young things eyes
and subsequent heart.

Then
these bags that sag, these full
grapes eager to burst in their ripe and
overloaded – unattended spitting
boils – rolling.

Then
the ones who crawl: ten thousand
fingered giants,
pawing up peaks and into the invisible,
to join their
top toppling,
chest swelling brothers.
Bastards.

My favorite:
smooth
and oval
and layered.
Well that’s how they come across,
to our blind eyes.
They’re in that invisible as much as the obvious,
only uncloaked by the sudden cooling
over high places.
Look at their coming and going;
you see that(?)
feeding in
and out(?):
a stream filling
and emptying:
this alpine lake./?

“If she only knew about me: been on the mountains I’ve climbed, read the stories I’ve written, heard the music I composed, seen the shows I’ve played, experienced the parties/ritual happenings I’ve hosted, felt the rocks I’ve carried, watched the space I’ve bent, explored the dreams I’ve dreamt, spoke with the animals I’ve befriended… If she only knew. ”

It seems like such a distance and trial to get away and into quiet, into the ‘primitive’ and natural world. But it is not far. Forest and mountains without people or reception are very close. Even still, that can feel like part of our “busy, busy”, and not a place ‘away’. I suffer from objectives (agendas) – maybe, or perhaps just those time restrictions, and that there is something pressing to return to. Maybe ‘away’ is much much closer.

Did she look at you from across dark bar rooms or open cafe courts for want and affection or because you had been looking her way yourself only for forgotten endless hours and with piercing persistence?

Did she touch you with roses and stare into your eyes the same as every other boy in the room?

When she sat 3 seats over you thought to offer an open palm and half out stretched arm, that she might do the same, then you’d be holding hands while the guitar screamed so loud.